Space Oddity
by vinnie2757
Summary: 4th July 2000; a blue box crash lands in a garden in rural Kansas. 6th July, 2012; it rematerializes in New York City. Alfred Jones is at the centre of both instances, but the Doctor doesn't know why.
1. The Boy Who Waited

**Title: **Space Oddity

**Fandom: **_Hetalia: - Axis Powers_

**Author: **Me, obviously

**Genre:** adventure, friendship, sci-fi, drama

**Characters/Pairing(s):** America, England, Prussia, Canada(/Ukraine), Russia, Lithuania, Hungary(/Austria), Spain, Greece, Liechtenstein, Belgium, France(/Jeanne) + others

**Rating: **T

**Warnings:** mostly language, but the normal Doctor Who warnings apply; mild to moderate violence, psychological mind fucks, lots of sad, punches to the guts with feelings, oh and there's overt sex references much later on.

**Summary: **4th July 2000; a blue box crash lands in a garden in rural Kansas. 6th July, 2012; it rematerializes in New York City. Alfred Jones is at the centre of both instances, but the Doctor doesn't know why.

**Chapter Summary: **The problem, he thought, was that New York was _boring_.

**A/N: **I know this idea's been done before, but I'm hoping I'm a little more original, since I've not read any of them. Enjoy, lovelies~!

**The Boy Who Waited**

Alfred's house was big. It was big, and it was empty. Sometimes his brother was there, sometimes he wasn't. He didn't like being alone, but he understand that the grown-ups had to work, and he had plenty of friends at school that he could spend time with, so it wasn't all bad. There were rooms that were locked, and rooms that were empty. One room he never went into; there were things in there that he didn't understand, but made him sad.

On his seventh birthday, he was kneeling at his bedside, talking to the ceiling, thanking the Lord for all the presents he'd gotten; that handheld games console was really sweet! Thanks! He wasn't particularly religious as young boys went; he was pretty sure there was something out there, but he was more inclined to believe it was giant alien spaceships than one divine entity like his family said it was. He'd asked if God was an alien once, and got an earful for it, so he tended to avoid it now.

But the thing was, God, if you're there, if you could do that kind of thing, he was kind of lonely. Like, he had a lot of friends, and he had his brother when he was around, and he had a family and a house and he had a really good day today.

But he was still kind of lonely.

Having friends was all well and good, but they weren't really close, y'know? They were people to spend time with and gossip about girls with and play games with. They weren't people he'd give all his secrets too. He couldn't tell them about how he wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up so he could go and find aliens, because they'd laugh at him.

He just wanted someone he could spend time with.

Could he help a kid out? Please?

It was the noise he heard first; the tree house getting smashed to bits and the really loud thump of something heavy hitting the ground at speed. Alfred stared up at the ceiling for a second, holding his breath, but then he's leaping to his feet and dashing to the window, and there's a big blue box in his back garden.

He threw on his _Star Wars_ dressing gown, grabbed his superhero flashlight and ran downstairs. There was nobody else in. His brother was staying at a friend's house, and his family was working. He put on his trainers, unlocked the door and headed outside.

The box was balanced on one edge of the base, and as he watched, it teetered and fell. Some very loud swearing echoed inside, and he slapped the torch against his palm to make it work. The label on the box said 'Police Box.'

He was pondering what that meant when the doors burst open and smoke billowed out. He waved an arm to get it out of his face, and coughed a little. Something inside the box coughed back, great big hacking coughs like someone had tried to eat the smoke. Silly thing to do, that.

'Hello?' he asked, and took a step closer.

A head popped out, followed quickly by two arms, and a lot of really angry swearing.

'Fuck the fucking swimming pool with a whole load of fucking – oh, hello.'

Alfred blinked.

The man licked his lips and glanced up at the house behind Alfred, and then at the fence and the grass, and then over his shoulder to see the remains of the tree house.

'Oh,' he said, and looked back at Alfred. 'Terribly sorry. New controls. I'm used to the gears being on the right, see, but apparently I'm a leftie now. Not to mention the fact that she's changed the handbrake to that big red button, which she could have told me about but _no_. I didn't mean to crash land in your garden. I really am sorry.'

'You're British,' Alfred said.

'You're not,' the man replied. 'Mind yourself.'

And then he tumbled out of the box and collapsed on the grass, wearing a suit at least a size too big with a leather bomber jacket over the top that pretty much made him look like he was about twelve. Alfred thought he might be drunk, but then realisation struck like a bolt of lightning.

'Oh man!' he shouted, and pointed the torch at him. 'You're an alien!'

1

'Yes, well done,' the man waved him off. 'Congratulations. What gave it away? The 1960's police box? The fact I'm _English_? How I fell from the sky?'

'No!' Alfred crowed. 'That uniform's from the Second World War!'

The man stared at him from his spot on the floor. 'I don't know which is worse, that you know that or that I'm still wearing it. This is really very nice grass. Where are we?'

'Kansas,' Alfred told him.

The man laughed. It was a nice sort of laugh, Alfred thought. It was low and easy and a little bit rough. The kind of laugh a hard-bitten hero has when faced with impossible odds and no time. It was the sort of laugh he really hoped to have when he grew up. (He wouldn't, it would be really high pitched and girly, but he could dream.)

'Kansas. Of course it's Kansas. Say, have you ever read _The Wizard of Oz_?'

'That's a book?' Alfred asked, and stepped back to give the man a chance to get to his feet. 'I thought it was just a film with that lady that sang that song.'

The man sighed. 'I'll see if I can find it in the library.' He paused. 'Providing it hasn't moved.'

Alfred stared at him. 'What?'

'Never mind. Listen, have you got any food? I'm starving. Always happens, but I don't always crash land in some poor sod's back garden.' He sniggered and then pulled a face. 'Oh Christ,' he sighed. 'I've got one of those heads.'

Alfred stared some more. 'I can't reach the cupboards,' he said. 'But mom did the shopping a couple of days ago.'

'Lead on,' the man said.

He was tall, Alfred thought, grabbing his hand to pull him along. Laughing that laugh again, the man – alien, Alfred supposed – let him, stride more than long enough to keep up. Alfred barely reached his hip, but he was small for his age, and had been given many assurances that he would grow into his height later. He was tall and pale, ivory against Alfred's summer gold, with hair the colour of wheat and eyes the colour of – oh what was that stuff called, that stuff that messed Superman up – _kryptonite, _and he'd look like a superhero too, if it wasn't for those eyebrows.

He looked kind of silly though, wearing clothes too big for him and a smudge of dirt on his nose. But that was okay, Alfred decided, it looked right.

Alfred led him through the back door and into the kitchen, making sure to shut it behind him.

The man looked around. 'Where're your parents?' he asked.

Alfred shrugged. 'Work,' he said, and pulled the refrigerator open. 'They're always at work.'

'Oh.'

'What about your parents?' Alfred asked, and turned a box of fish fingers over to look at the date. 'Where are yours?'

'Who says I have parents?' the man asked. 'I'm an alien remember? What if I don't have parents?'

'Don't be silly, everyone has parents, even if they're not around anymore.'

The man pulled the bomber jacket off and dumped it on the back of one of the chairs before leaning against the counter and folding his arms. Whilst he did so, he said, 'Is one of your parents not around anymore?'

'I 'unno. D'you like custard?'

'Custard? Been a while since I had it.' He paused. 'What do you mean, you don't know?'

'Don't really see 'em,' Alfred said, and dumped the fish fingers on the counter before shutting the fridge and climbing up onto the counter to look for custard powder in one of the cupboards.

'Get down from there, love,' the man chided, and Alfred turned to look at him, ears red.

'Love?' he asked. 'Is that a British thing?'

The man crossed over to him. 'I think so? It's been a while since I was in Britain.'

Alfred pursed his lips. 'You're weird.'

'Says you. Get down, what are you looking for?'

'Custard powder.'

'Right. Down we go,' he said, picking Alfred up under his arms and depositing him on the floor. 'You're heavy, y'know that?'

'Says you,' Alfred grinned back, and got a flick to the forehead for his trouble.

'What's this – fish fingers? Fish fingers and custard? What? No, that's disgusting. Put these away, okay? I'll just – I'll make toast. Toast is good.'

Alfred pouted, but did as he was told and then sat on the chair with the jacket on it and watched the alien wander around the kitchen. He had a bit of trouble getting the toaster to do what he wanted it to, but got there in the end. He was rooting in a cupboard when Alfred next spoke.

'But you're an alien,' he said. 'Toast is _boring._'

'Look,' the man said, and turned to look over his shoulder at Alfred. His arm was still in the cupboard up to his elbow, and as he moved, something in his back cracked loudly and kind of painfully. 'Just because I'm an alien does not mean I eat fish fingers and custard.'

Alfred puffed his cheeks out, and said nothing. The man - alien - made a pleased little noise in his throat and fished out the ketchup.

'But,' Alfred said once the alien-man had sat back down. 'You burnt the toast.'

'It's not burnt.'

'It's black,' Alfred said.

The alien smothered ketchup over it. 'It's red now,' he said, and shoved the slice in his mouth.

This body, the alien thought to himself, had no taste buds. There was no way the toast wasn't burnt, but it tasted just fine to him. When he'd finished eating, he folded his arms on the table and looked at the little one sat opposite him.

'What's your name?' he asked. 'It was pretty rude of me to have not asked earlier.'

'Alfred,' the human replied.

The alien stuck his hand out. 'I'm the Doctor.'

Alfred took it and shook as strongly as he could. The Doctor's hand was cool, on the wrong side of cold, wiry and strong and rough on the palm. Alfred's hand was very small next to it, but it fitted nicely. When he let go, the Doctor retreated to his side of the table. Alfred leant back against the jacket. It smelt of rain and dust and old leather, cigarettes and alcohol and something – something he wasn't quite sure about, but it was an alright sort of smell altogether.

'What sort of doctor?' Alfred asked. 'There's all sorts of doctors – there are doctors that work with dinosaurs, I learnt about it at school.'

The Doctor smiled. 'Just the Doctor.'

'But what sort?'

'I'm not any specific sort. I'm just a doctor.'

'With a blue box.'

'Yes.'

'Oh.' Alfred was quiet for a while. 'Are you sure you're a doctor?'

The Doctor chuckled. 'Yes, I'm sure.'

''Cause I think you're an angel.'

If the Doctor had been intending to laugh again, Alfred didn't know, because he was choking, garbled noises in his throat as he gasped for air.

'Excuse me?' he asked when he got his breath back.

'Yeah! I mean, I asked God if He could send me someone I could spend time with, 'cause I'm – well, I'm really lonely! I'm on my own a lot and this house is kind of big and He sent you, so you gotta be an angel, right?'

The Doctor's smile was strained, and Alfred thought he was about to cry. He opened his mouth to apologise, but the alien beat him to it.

'Oh, well in that case,' he said. It would take Alfred several years to realise that that was a poor attempt at a joking dismissal.

'Do all doctors have blue boxes?'

'No,' the Doctor replied, and something in his face was very sad even though he was still smiling, Alfred thought. 'Just me.'

Alfred frowned. 'That sounds lonely.'

'It's alright,' the Doctor shrugged. 'I make do.'

For a while they were quiet. Alfred picked at his nails and turned his face so he could smell more of that jacket, commit it to memory before the Doctor vanished like everyone else. The Doctor fiddled with his uniform, examining his hands and messing with his hair. He grumbled something that sounded like "still not ginger", and Alfred looked at him.

'Why here?' the Doctor grumbled eventually, and propped his chin up on his hand. 'If I'm here, it's for a damn good reason. Even crashing, the TARDIS has more co-ordination than to just randomly throw herself into a garden. Random isn't in her circuitry.'

'TARDIS?'

'Time and Relative Dimension in Space – never mind, it's the name of my ship,' the Doctor said, waving a hand. Alfred had no idea what 'Relative Dimension' meant, but it sounded pretty cool. 'She doesn't do things by accident, she never has. There's something here she wants me to see or do.' He looked at Alfred then, his very green eyes very intense and very bright. 'Is there something you need fixing, love?'

Alfred shook his head. 'I'm just lonely. Not very many friends here.'

The Doctor looked at him some more. And then he smiled a soft little smile. He had dimples. 'Do you want to come with me?'

'Where?'

'Anywhere. All of time and all of space. I can take you anywhere and anywhen. We could see dinosaurs. We could go to the last days of the Earth – to the other end of the universe – they've got an amazing restaurant there, run by some delightful people – I say people. We could go to Barcelona – a planet – where they've got dogs with no noses.'

'All dogs have noses.'

'Not these ones. What d'you say?'

'Will it be dangerous?'

'I won't let you get hurt. We won't go anywhere dangerous. I promise you, you'll be safe.'

Alfred thought about it. 'How long for?'

'As long as you like.'

'Will I be home in time for school?'

'I can bring you home for ten seconds after we leave.'

'Really?'

'Yes.'

'Okay,' Alfred said. 'Dogs with no noses?'

'Dogs with no noses.'

Alfred got to his feet and the Doctor followed suit, so Alfred led him upstairs to his bedroom where the Doctor helped him pack.

There was a second where there Doctor paused as if confused. He was, a little, though he wasn't sure why. He looked around the room, but nothing seemed important. There were four pictures above Alfred's bed, two pairs of shoes on the sheets waiting to be packed away, two jackets and two coats on the coat rail by the door, the things on his desk lined up neatly; four pens and two pencils, a ruler and eraser, two colouring books and a pad of paper. Two pairs of bookends, holding up two stacks of books on the shelf. Two glasses of water on the bedside table, half drunk.

'Alfred, do you like even numbers? Two, four, six and so on?'

'They're the same as odd numbers, right?' Alfred asked, absorbed in his packing. 'Don't see much difference whether they're odd or even – what's the weather like on Barcelona?'

'It's pretty average,' the Doctor replied, going to the window and looking out over the smoking TARDIS. 'T-shirt and jeans. Sensible shoes.'

'Okay. Are you alright? You look kind of sad still.'

'I'm fine,' the Doctor assured him, and ruffled the boy's hair when he passed him. 'Keep packing, okay? I'm just going to park the TARDIS again so you don't trip.'

'Okay.'

The Doctor took the stairs two at a time, hearts hammering in his chest. Something was wrong, he could feel it in his bones, but he couldn't pinpoint it, couldn't tell what. He paused to snoop around the ground floor; family portraits, a TV guide, a Monopoly board. Family things. He rifled through some envelopes on the mantelpiece until he got a name; Jones. That done, he skirted his way through the house and dropped into the TARDIS, narrowly avoiding taking his face off on the door.

Carefully manoeuvring himself down to the central console, he flicked the appropriate switches, yanked a lever, and with a whine and a groan, the engines started up again. As she righted herself, the Doctor pulled a screen towards him.

'Alfred Jones. Kansas, the United States of America, Earth. 4th July, 2000. Search.'

There was nothing, a stream of static. No data available.

'The Summer Olympic Games. Sydney, Australia, Earth. 2000. Search.'

A stream of data; all the medal winners, full records of competitors, lists of who attended what. The Doctor frowned.

'Math – Erszébet Hédervary. Adipose 5. Sigma-Seven-Delta. Search.'

A photograph of a grinning brunette surrounded by white. He pushed the screen away and turned back to the console.

'Alright, old girl,' he said. 'You can land now, if you would.'

The engines churned, there was a dull thunk, and then silence. The Doctor scrambled back to the doors and yanked them open, mouth open to call for Alfred, only to let out a noise of confusion instead. He shut the door. Opened it again.

He turned back to the console.

'You've parked us in the wrong place again,' he told her.

The console room's lights took on a pinkish hue; embarrassment, or as close to it as she could get.

He heaved a sigh. 'Never mind.' He looked outside again. 'Love,' he said, turning to look over his shoulder. 'Are we even in Kansas?'

The lights went blue; no.

'Well, fuck. Do you still take the same key?'

The engines churned and he shrugged. 'Well we don't have time for that, do we?'

She fell still and silent again, shutting down to finish repairing herself. There was a less than polite boot up his arse from the door slamming shut, and he found himself locked out.

'Well, that's just _dandy_.'

Shoving his hands in his trouser pockets, he slipped out of the alleyway and looked around. A metropolis – no flying cars, so it was four-digit Earth at least – stretching too high and too far. But there was a gaping hole in the skyline, a little too conspicuous.

'Hold up,' he said. 'What's that then?'

Traffic, of course, was horrendous, but he managed to get across the road and round a corner before running into trouble.

Trouble being a very silly young woman.

He was rooting through his pockets, hoping he had the Sonic Screwdriver still, stood in front of one of those newspaper vending machines and scowling at the _New York Times_ inside.

'Can I help?' she asked.

The Doctor shook his head and pulled out a handful of Belgian Francs.

'No, I'm good.'

She stood there, and stared at him.

'Can I help?' he asked, aware he was pulling a face.

He shoved the Francs away and rooted some more. The Screwdriver was nowhere to be found, of course. He did have his psychic paper though, thank God.

'You're British,' she said.

'English,' he corrected, and then stopped. 'Well. Whatever. Listen, can you tell me where I am?'

'New York? In America?'

'What about the date?'

'Sixth July, 2012.'

'Cheers.'

And he strode away, lamenting leaving the bomber jacket on the chair in Alfred's dining room.

_Alfred_.

2

There must be a way to get in contact with him. The more he stood in the middle of a fairly quiet street, staring at the buildings around him, the more he became aware that there were people staring at him. He was wearing a World War Two uniform that was too big for him, and the general consensus, probably, was that he was drunk, or at the least, hung-over. He felt it, all dizzy and disorientated, lost in this new world. He'd not been to New York City before.

'What do I do?' he murmured to himself, dug his hands into his pockets, and started walking back in the general direction of the TARDIS.

He got lost, of course, wound his way through the streets until he found himself on an intersection between three different streets. In front of him was a large department store, and there was a poster in the window saying there was a café. Making sure he had his psychic paper, he slipped through the revolving doors and headed straight for the café. He needed a drink, whatever they had that wasn't god-awful coffee.

The psychic paper bought him a mug of hot chocolate and a blueberry muffin. He wasn't fond of blueberries, but it was better than nothing, and he settled into a corner table to think things through.

He'd go back to the TARDIS, go back to Kansas ten seconds from where he left Alfred, and no one would be any the wiser. It would only take as long as she needed to finish regenerating anyway, and Alfred wouldn't know the difference. He'd take the boy to Barcelona, and then to that satellite that was nothing but an amusement park. Maybe he'd take him to the Library, teach him about all the things in space that he couldn't show him. Just a quick spin around the galaxy. He'd return later, when Alfred was older, maybe, take him on a proper journey.

Matthew, Erszebét, they'd both left gaping holes in his ribs, the former especially. Erszebét had never been his to claim, but Matthew had been so wonderful, all bright eyes and eagerness to understand. He hoped the kid was okay now.

Draining the last of the chocolate, he got to his feet and made for the door.

'Wait a minute!'

He paused, turned, and caught a flash of brown leather before it was gone. It was that woman from earlier.

'Here,' she said, and handed him a city guide. 'You looked lost, so I thought it might help.'

He took it, eyebrow raised. 'Thank you.'

She rocked up onto her toes and kissed his cheek, then blushed bright red and disappeared.

'Okay?'

The Doctor turned and made to leave again.

'Alfred?'

'Twelve years,' the boy replied, but he wasn't a boy any more, he was a man, an adult and he'd grown well, all broad shoulders and strong jaw. His eyes were still so _blue_ and he was wearing glasses now, rectangular things that removed any trace of boyishness that might have been there still. 'Twelve years you were gone.' And God, but didn't he sound broken for it. A shop floor was no place to start a scene, but there was no way to get him out; he was wearing a name tag, he worked here.

Something buzzed in the Doctor's ears, but he ignored it. 'You're wearing my jacket.'

'It's the only thing you left behind.'

'I'm sorry, I didn't realise we'd gone so far ahead. I'd planned to go back, when the TARDIS let me back in.' He grinned sheepishly. 'I've been locked out.'

He couldn't stop staring. Where was the little boy he'd left a half-hour ago? There was nothing of him left, and yet he was still in there. Alfred had aged so well, and he wasn't done yet, he was still so young. Alfred stood there staring at him in return, and the Doctor let him look, wondered what the twelve years had turned him into in Alfred's mind.

'You're so short,' Alfred said then. 'You used to be so big.'

The Doctor laughed, had heard that before. 'I know,' he replied. He licked his lips, drew his eyebrows together in a frown. 'The offer still stands.'

'What offer?'

'Barcelona.'

'All dogs have noses,' Alfred said, serious, but there was laughter in his eyes.

'Not these ones,' the Doctor grinned back, and let Alfred sweep him up into his arms.

Alfred was warm and firm under his arms, a solid presence. He was all muscle now, the kind of muscle one gets from living a very energetic life, rather than training for it. The Doctor imagined Alfred played a lot of sports and walked everywhere. He was wrong, of course, Alfred begged lifts off people, but he did at least play a lot of sport.

'I'm glad you're back,' Alfred murmured into the alien's neck.

'I'm glad to be back,' the Doctor replied, inhaled the smell of barley and fresh coffee on Alfred's collar. Once Alfred had set him back on his feet, that buzzing began again. 'Have you got a faulty circuit somewhere?' he asked, 'I can hear a buzzing noise.'

'What sort of buzzing?' Alfred asked in reply. 'Could be the lights.'

'No, no, it's like a, a.' The Doctor waved a hand, all loose wrist and flappy fingers. 'Static noise. Like the sort of noise when there's open electricity.'

'There's none of that here,' Alfred told him, and looked around, scratching his head. 'I'm pretty sure that's dangerous.'

'No, I know, that's why it's bugging me. Listen, you don't have my screwdriver, do you?'

'Screwdriver?'

'It was in my – your – bomber pocket.'

Comprehension dawned, and Alfred went red in the ears. 'Oh, that thing that makes the whizzing noise. It's uh, in my bedroom. At university. Is it important?'

The Doctor shrugged. 'Nah, not really, just be handy's all. I'm going to go take a poke around, alright? Just keep working, and I'll – wait, what time do you get off?'

Alfred stared at him.

'What?'

'From work.'

'What about it?'

'You said – oh, never mind. My shift ends at five. It's three-twenty now, so meet me back here, alright?'

The Doctor grinned. 'Not going to try and stop me from going off by myself?'

'No,' Alfred shrugged. 'It's not like you can get anywhere, is it?'

The Doctor just laughed and slipped around him to leave the café and head for the upstairs men's department.

* * *

As it turned out, the buzzing he heard was an inter-space, post-regeneration migraine, and after sprawling out in a cupboard for some half an hour and spitting out excess regeneration energy, he was back to normal – as normal as he could ever be, anyway – and on his way. Not, as he found, after bluffing his way into the manager's office for a poke around, that there was any way to be going. There was literally nothing of interest.

It was perfectly normal.

It was just a department store.

'Oh, how dull!' he exclaimed to himself, strolling through the men's section with his hands in his pockets. 'What's the use of you all if you're not going to get yourselves into trouble?'

The mannequin standing posed the same way as he was walking said nothing, but he'd not really expected it to. The Doctor sighed, eyed the suit the mannequin was wearing, and bemoaned the fact the only money he had on him dated from seventy years ago.

When he went to find Alfred again, the boy was waiting for him, wearing that bomber jacket. It fit him like he was meant to wear it. The Doctor wondered if he was. They stood their looking at each other again, the Doctor's hands in his trouser pockets, Alfred's in his jackets, and then the Doctor shrugged.

'Your life is terribly boring,' he said. 'Come on, let's go find adventure.'

'Some of us like terribly boring lives though,' Alfred said, and led the Doctor outside.

Instead of replying with words, the Doctor gave him a look. Alfred went pink.

'Alright, alright, maybe I was waiting for you because I was bored of routine, can we just get a move on already?'

It was the Doctor's turn to go pink.

'I suppose we can, yes.' It was a hurried agreement, a little flustering.

Seven hundred years he'd been doing this, picking people up and taking them for a spin, and some lasted longer than others, but Alfred was, undeniably, the first that had waited for him. Some left willingly, others by force, some never wanted to go and some never wanted to see anything but the back of him from the moment he turned to leave them be. But no one had ever waited for him to come back to them, had never been so sure that he would.

Alfred was _meant_ to come with him.

3

'Good,' Alfred grinned, and flung an arm around the Doctor's shoulders. If he noticed the Doctor's reaction, he didn't say a word. 'Then let's go! There's dogs with no noses on that I have to take photos of!'

'You can't take _photos_,' the Doctor complained, but made no move to remove Alfred's arm. 'It'll mess up the space-time – oh, sod it, take your photos if you like.'

About halfway back to the TARDIS, the Doctor stopped. Alfred kept walking for a few steps and his arm fell away when there were no skinny shoulders to support it. The boy turned, confused.

'What is it?'

'How far away's this university of yours?'

'Other side of town,' Alfred shrugged. 'Half an hour maybe?'

'Fuck it, I'll get another one.' Regeneration always gave him a new screwdriver anyway, the one Alfred had would burn out soon enough.

'Another one of what?'

'The screwdriver,' the Doctor said, shuffled in his suit and continued walking.

He really needed to change out of this uniform, it was much too big now, but he still hadn't found what sort of person he was yet. Was he a jeans-and-T-shirt kind of Time Lord? Was he the sort to wear a stick of celery in his lapel? Did he like jelly beans? These were important questions he hadn't yet answered and until he answered them, there was no point in changing. Besides, it fit well enough that he didn't much have any problems moving.

'So is Barcelona still T-shirts-and-jeans sort of weather?' Alfred asked.

The Doctor looked at him, gave him a long once-over and almost tripped over a littering _Starbucks_ cup whilst looking at the taller man's shoes.

'Ah, you'll be alright, I reckon. Might be a little warm, but it's not much hotter than here. It's not Hawaiian shirt weather, that's for sure.'

'Cool.'

Whilst the Doctor tried to navigate them back to the TARDIS, they didn't much speak, the Doctor too busy trying to remember where exactly the old girl had parked herself this time, and Alfred too busy thinking about whatever it was he was busy thinking about. She must surely have finished regenerating by now, and finished adding the last little touches to make herself presentable. The lipstick and eyeliner, if you would. Couch cushions in the library and a huge array of rubber ducks by the bathtub. He really hoped there were rubber ducks this time, bath time was always so boring without rubber ducks.

Not, of course, that he'd worked out what their purpose was exactly. He mostly thought they were fun things to have in the bath.

'Doctor?'

'Hmm?'

'We aren't _lost_, are we?'

The Doctor laughed, high in his throat. 'No,' he replied. 'Not at all. Not a single bit.'

'Doctor.'

'Yes. We're lost.'

Alfred laughed then. 'Well, this is an adventure. Do you recognise _anything_?'

'Everything looks the same to me. It all looks _boring_.'

'That's just rude,' Alfred huffed, but he was still laughing.

The Doctor glared at him. 'I've never been to New York before! It's not my fault.'

The problem, he thought, was that New York was _boring_. There was nothing interesting going on to give him a point of reference. Oh, he supposed it was interesting to everyone else, all the humans living here and the aliens that stopped by with their perception filters making them blend in, though some did it more effectively than others, because really, a suit made of meat was not the height of fashion no matter what anyone seemed to think.

Nothing interesting was happening at all; there were no explosions, no megalomaniacal aliens, no past adventures going wrong and coming back to haunt him, not even one measly attempt to undermine the government. What was wrong with this city, this country even?

'There aren't even any pig-humans,' he groused to himself, forgetting, for a moment, that Alfred was there.

'Pig-humans?'

'Never mind. Oh! I recognise this street, this is where I got accosted by that bloody woman.'

'You got accosted?'

'I'm English,' the Doctor said.

'Ah,' Alfred nodded.

The Doctor jogged down the street, ignoring the people who stopped to stare, and came to a standstill in front of the newspaper bin. He looked around, and carefully retraced his steps back to the TARDIS, standing pride of place and completely invisible to everyone walking past her.

Only.

She wasn't there.

'_What_?'

'What is it?' Alfred asked, looking around.

The Doctor extended both hands to where the TARDIS should have been, but wasn't. It was just empty space.

'My TARDIS! She's gone!'

'What?'

'I swear to all that is even in existence!' the Doctor snapped, and span on the spot to look around, coming back to a rest next to Alfred, his arms folded and pouting. 'If someone's stolen her to make a paradox machine or turn her into a weapon or some kind of battleship, I swear to God I am going to write a stiff letter of complaint.'

'You are so British,' Alfred told him.

'I know, it's a bad habit. I mean it though, if someone's gotten their hands on her, there's no telling what's going to happen. It's just bloody _typical_. I've not been regenerated for five hours and look, my TARDIS had been stolen.'

'Did you leave it unlocked?' Alfred had precisely zero right to laugh, but he was doing it anyway.

The Doctor hit him, a fist to the arm, and panic had begun to set in, deep in the marrow of his ribs.

'This isn't good,' he said, and tugged at his hair. 'This isn't good at all. You don't realise what this means.'

He rubbed at his forehead, tried to think of any reason she could not be where he'd left her. It wasn't like her to just get up and fly away, not unless there was a reason for her to get out of town. Unless there was danger. Danger dangerous enough to pose a danger even to her. Slowly, the Doctor turned to look at Alfred.

'It's you, isn't it?' he said. 'This is all about you.' He slapped his hands to Alfred's cheeks and pressed them together, cooing, 'Oh, you brilliant, brilliant girl! You knew!'

4

And then he was bounding away back the way they'd come, dragging Alfred by the wrist.

'We need to go that university of yours,' he said as they walked briskly through the streets, and the Doctor fell back a pace to let Alfred lead. 'I need that screwdriver, else we're never getting to Barcelona.'

**++End Chapter++**

**NOTES::**

There are a few shout-outs in here, so if you missed some, here's a rundown.

When the Doctor mentions the **restaurant at the end of the universe**, that is, obviously, Hitchhikers.

**There are a whole bunch of shout-outs to the different doctors.**

The **function of a rubber duck** is a fond reminiscence of Arthur Weasley.

Doctor, oh my God, you can't accuse **Lady GaGa of being an alien! **…Can you?

**But who cares about that, right? So, I've started **_**another **_**project, wow genius me! This won't be very action centric. There will be a lot of running, but not many guns and fights and explosions. I'm going for the more psychological route on this one, rather than lots of death and murder. I know that sounds boring, but fingers crossed, it won't be!**

**++Vince++ **


	2. The Empty Child

**Genre:** adventure, sci-fi

**Rating: **T

**Warnings:** Language.

**Chapter Summary: **A plot thickens, and the Doctor takes a bath.

**A/N: **So I didn't get it done for Silence's birthday, but I've had some things to do and writing is hard. There's a lot of dialogue this time, I should probably work on writing more narrative. Oh well. Enjoy, lovelies~!

**Chapter Two: The Empty Child**

'Alfred, hurry up!'

'Oh my _God_, what's the rush? It's not like something's going to explode is it?'

'I don't know!' The Doctor admitted, a bit too loud for the corridor. 'It might!'

Alfred stopped fiddling with his keys to look at him. 'Something's going to explode?'

There was a look of glee creeping onto his face and the Doctor waved him off.

'No,' he said, firm. 'Not if you stop pratting around with your keys and let me get my screwdriver back.'

It had taken them almost twenty minutes to get back to campus, and Alfred had been asking ridiculous questions the entire time. Not that the Doctor had any answers for him; how could he? He didn't even know why the TARDIS had dropped him here, today of all days. All he knew was _something_ was happening because something always happened. No matter where or when, something always happened.

Never a day off for a Time Lord, apparently.

The few of Alfred's dorm mates that were still around had been giving the Doctor some pretty odd looks in the few minutes they'd been there. So what if he was wearing a uniform from the Second World War, it was nothing to do with them.

Finally, Alfred got the door open, and stood aside to let the Doctor in. It was a well-decorated room, and after all these years, the kid still had that inclination towards even numbers. At a glance, it wasn't obvious, but having expected it, if nothing else, the Doctor was quick to note the even number of books on his bookshelves, the even number of DVDs, the two pillows on his bed, the neatly arranged pairs of shoes, all four pairs of them, the even number of pens and pencils on the desk, the even number of posters. He'd bet good money on the probability that his wardrobe had an even number of coat hangers in it.

1

'Ah!' he said, distracted from the thought by the screwdriver sitting in a little display case. 'How sweet.'

He pulled it apart to get at it. It was a little battered and scuffed; hardly surprising, considering he'd used it for at least three years. He was a little surprised he'd lasted that long, actually. Otherwise, it was still in pretty decent condition, and he flipped it in the air before pressing a button.

It whined, whined louder and then exploded in his face.

A moment of utter silence passed, and then Alfred said, 'What?'

The Doctor stood there looking at the smouldering wreck of his screwdriver and then sighed.

'Well, fuck you too,' he said, but it didn't seem directed at anyone, so Alfred didn't take it personally. 'I suppose that means I've got to do it myself. How boring.' He tossed the wreck on the desk and turned to look at Alfred. 'S'pose this is a daft question, but have you spotted anything strange recently? Anything that doesn't seem quite right? Lights where there shouldn't be, strangely posed shop dummies, anything at all?'

Alfred looked at his feet whilst he thought, shuffled a little. The room was so still and so quiet the Doctor could almost hear the cogs turning, but he didn't dwell on it, just rubbed his face clean of the dirt coughed into his face by the screwdriver. Eventually, Alfred shook his head.

'There's nothing. Nothing recent anyway.'

The Doctor sighed and flopped into Alfred's desk chair, span it around aimlessly. 'There must be _something_. She wouldn't have brought me here to meet you today if nothing interesting happened.'

If anything interesting was happening, it wouldn't have had enough of a consequence in the world to be something he'd know about. There were no intergalactic events happening today, no spaceships or giant leaps for mankind. It was just an ordinary day.

God, Fridays were boring. All days were boring, except maybe Saturdays. Saturdays were fun. That wasn't why she'd brought him here was it? Was something interesting happening on Saturday? The Doctor stopped spinning and asked.

'Tomorrow? No, nothing that I know about. I don't really – well, I don't really have a lot of friends.'

The Doctor frowned at his knees. 'I see.'

'I do alright though. I mean, I'm studying space so it takes up a lot of time and between that and working, I don't really have a lot of time to hang out with people, so it's cool.'

The Doctor frowned some more. 'I see,' he repeated, quieter.

'I didn't know what to do,' Alfred continued. 'I wasn't sure how to get back in touch with you, because you'd just disappeared, so I thought I'd study space. You were a space man, an alien, so I thought if I looked up there long enough I might see you, you know? Might see your blue box and find a way to get a message to you. Or maybe just go and see Barcelona for myself.' He sat on his bed, looked a bit distraught. 'I was so alone, Doctor, I was just so lonely and you came out of nowhere when I asked God to give me a friend, and you came. And then He took you away from me again and I didn't know what to do.'

Silence reigned again, for a long horrible while, and the Doctor picked up the wreck of the screwdriver, just for something to fiddle with. Outside, the world carried on, but in there, in that sunlit room with its lazy ceiling fan and the posters covered in the stars, it was like a bubble. Nothing came in, nothing went out, just a little pocket in space and time and they were the only things in it, and they were so close, but they were so far away from each other, like they were strangers.

It was sad, the Doctor thought, finally looked up from the dead blue light. They were.

'I missed so much,' he said. 'Too much.'

The Doctor finally got to his feet, tossed the screwdriver back onto the desk and shoved his hands in his pockets. He went to the window and looked out, looked at all the people – students, for the most part – wandering back and forth and didn't say anything.

'There was this one thing,' Alfred said eventually. 'A few hours before you showed up. I didn't think anything of it.'

The Doctor turned back, eyebrow raised. 'Anything is good right now.'

'There was this man, he came in and I've never seen him before. He was wearing this uniform, it was strange. It was like, a security uniform, and I was in the middle of doing something else so I thought he must have been one of those security guys who come to take the money to the bank or something, you know the type?' The Doctor nodded; he didn't know, actually, but let Alfred ramble. 'So I just let him get on with it. But he didn't bring anything back. Just walked out.'

'What was so special about him?' the Doctor asked, and crossed the room to crouch in front of Alfred, to look at him in the eye. 'Why did you notice him?'

'It was his beret,' Alfred said. 'It just caught my eye.'

The Doctor stared at him. 'What colour was it?'

'Red,' Alfred said. 'Scarlet red.'

A second passed, and then the Doctor was on his feet and lunging for the door, sprinting off down the corridor. Alfred hastened to follow, dropping behind a good way to lock his door. He caught up whilst the Doctor was taking the stairs up to the public street two at a time. Alfred with his longer legs could take them at a three, and waited for him.

'What does that mean?' he demanded as the Doctor took off back the way they came, back into town. 'What's so special about it?'

'It's UNIT,' the Doctor said. 'They're here, they're in New York – they're in your store. I was right! There was something there.' He paused at the traffic lights, tilted his head. 'Well, it does explain why the TARDIS vanished at least, she does hate UNIT with a passion. Once you've been almost dissected on no less than three occasions – ah, green! – you tend to get the fuck out of town anytime they're there too.'

'Wait, sorry, who are UNIT?'

'Unified Intelligence Taskforce. Last time I saw them, it was United Nations, but last time I saw them it must have been when your parents were kids.' The Doctor scratched his scalp with both hands. 'They're sort of – an army, I suppose, dedicated to sorting out alien shit and keeping you lot out of it. Not that they do a very good job of it – you should see London these days! My God, you'd think the country had gone to the dogs! Well, there was that time with Victoria. But that was a werewolf.'

'What?'

'Never mind, come along, Jones, we've got to get back to that store of yours.'

Alfred stopped then, watched the Doctor rush off down the street and then whistled, loud and sharp. The Doctor winced and turned back.

'What was that for?'

Alfred gestured at the cab that pulled up beside him. 'It's quicker,' was all he said.

'Brilliant!'

* * *

Back at the store, everything had been cordoned off. Not a surprise, really, since there was no store left, just a smouldering wreck of rubble. Alfred and the Doctor stood there, dumb-founded for the better part, eyebrows knotted and mouths half-open. People had gathered around, and the police were holding everyone back. In the centre were a group of UNIT operatives, standing around a jeep with a map of some sort spread out across the bonnet.

The Doctor rooted in his pockets and flashed his psychic paper, getting him and Alfred under the tape and into the wreckage.

'So come on then,' he said as he strolled to the UNIT operatives, hands in his pockets, Alfred badly feigning nonchalance beside him. 'Let's be havin' you. What did you do?'

The UNIT operative with the most stripes – the leader, then – stepped forwards to give the Doctor a filthy little once-over. Taller than the Doctor by only inches, most of which were the soles of his boots, he looked too well-trained to have been raised in the ranks. He was an army boy, and probably one who had seen something, somewhere, that the Doctor had either caused or stopped, or, as was more likely, both.

'And you are?' He had a thick accent; Alfred would have said German, but it didn't sound right.

'The Doctor. And yourself?'

It surely said something of UNIT's capabilities that they did not question his identification. The UNIT commander snapped to attention, saluted and stood at ease when the Doctor waved him down with a grumble about saluting him.

'Lieutenant Zwingli, sir,' he said, and then strode back over to the jeep to look again at the map. 'We have been gathering intelligence in the area.'

'By intelligence, you mean blowing things up,' the Doctor snorted and followed him over. He pulled a pair of glasses from his pocket and argued with them for a moment before finally getting them on and examining the map.

Alfred hung at the edge of the scene, not sure what exactly was going on and deciding it wiser to stay out of it. The Doctor didn't look at him, but called him over anyway.

'Alfred, I need your help, I can't make head nor tails of this. Tell me what this means.'

The boy came to stand at his side, and when the Doctor asked where the TARDIS had been in relation to all this, Alfred pointed at the dead centre of the map.

'There, Park Lane.'

'And where are we now?'

'Here,' Zwingli said, pointing at a recently-drawn point on the map.

'Give me a ruler,' the Doctor said. 'And a pen.'

Alfred handed him a pen, and Zwingli scrounged up a ruler from somewhere.

'Hey, guess what?' the Doctor asked as he drew a series of lines. 'She wasn't being completely stupid, it's a pattern, look at that.'

He'd drawn a pentagram from the five points that had been marked. The TARDIS had landed straight in the centre of it all.

'I presume these were explosions that _you_ set off?' he asked, and capped the pen, folded his arms, looking over at the UNIT lieutenant.

'Not all of them. Only this one.'

'Yeah,' Alfred scoffed. 'Destroying my job in the process. You do realise what you've done, right? A lot of people needed these jobs to keep their homes and to keep food on the table. You've just ruined – '

2

'Alfred,' the Doctor said, and unfolded his arms to wrap a hand around Alfred's own. 'That's enough. I'm sure UNIT already have replacement jobs found for all workers here. Since they're responsible for this, it's the reasonable course of action to take.'

Zwingli's ears went as red as his beret, but he didn't reply.

'Do you think this means something?' he asked instead, and gestured at the map.

'Could mean anything,' the Doctor shrugged. 'It's probably coincidence. It's not a perfect pentagram, so it can't be entirely planned.' He pulled his glasses off and looked back over to Zwingli. 'Why exactly _did_ you blow up the shop?'

'Living plastic,' Zwingli replied. 'We caught it before it could make a move.'

'I see.'

Alfred didn't, so he asked, 'What's living plastic?'

The Doctor looked at him. 'Exactly that. Living plastic. Plastic that's alive. It's an artificial life, of course, doesn't have a mind of its own, it's just a receptacle, controlled by a sentient being – speaking of sentience, did you get that too?'

'Of course we did,' one of the UNIT troopers scoffed. 'What do you take us for?'

'Fools,' the Doctor said. 'Fools and nothing more. I think we're done here.'

'Done?' Alfred and Zwingli asked at the same time.

'What do you mean done?' Alfred added. 'There's aliens. I thought you investigated aliens.'

'I do investigate aliens,' the Doctor agreed. 'But it's hard to investigate them when the only thing I have with me is a piece of paper that only works on weak minds. And if I don't tell a lie too big for it. I need my screwdriver, _especially_ with living plastic. No, we need to get out of the area so the TARDIS can come back, the silly cow that she is. I don't know what she's so scared of.'

Except he did, in that vague way of his. He was smart enough to think like the aliens, whatever they were; he doubts it was the Nestene Consciousness alone, not doubting the alien's intelligence, but rather the intricacy of the plan. Whatever it was that was being set up in all five points had been set up to trap the TARDIS, that he didn't doubt. It wasn't beyond the Nestene of course, but it seemed to elaborate for them.

The implication that there was a bigger plot afoot didn't sit well at all, so he turned on his heel and headed back for the tape. The safest thing to do now was get back into the vortex and finish the regeneration cycle without any interruptions, but he knew it would be a foolish hope, really.

'What's the quickest way out of this area?' he asked, looking at the map again. 'Is there anything of interest at a point outside the pentagon?'

'There's a cinema about five minutes away from here,' Alfred sad. 'Big place, lots of 3D screens.'

'And that's a point of interest?'

'Spiderman?' Alfred shrugged. 'I hear that's pretty good.'

'Still with the superheroes, after all these years.'

'Obviously.'

'Alright, it's as good a plan as any, let's go. Lieutenant?'

'Yes, sir?'

The Doctor frowned at him. 'Try not to blow up anything else, alright? I'll call by Geneva in a few hours and talk to the Brigadier General.'

'Alright, I'll let them know you're coming.'

'You do that. Come along, Alfred.'

And with that the Doctor strode off in the direction Alfred pointed him.

* * *

The TARDIS was waiting for them in the alley behind the cinema when they reached it, doors open and lights on. Alfred stopped to look at it in shock, and the Doctor folded his arms crossly, foot tapping.

'What time do you call this?' he demanded of the phone box, and gestured with a toss of his head. 'Go on in, Alfred.'

'But,' he said. 'But it looks bigger on the inside. That's not possible.'

'Do you hear that?' the Doctor asked. 'That's the sound of me not giving a shit. You wanted space, I'm giving you space. Go take a look. She won't hurt you.'

'What if she runs off?'

'Alfred, she's a phone box, she's not _running_ anywhere.'

The TARDIS whistled at him, that old familiar note; she'd still not turned the handbrake off. He laughed and kicked at the back of Alfred's leg.

'Go on, she wants us in.'

'You understand her?'

The Doctor wobbled a hand side-to-side; kind of, yeah. Alfred shrugged and headed inside, and the Doctor followed, let the doors swing shut and bounded up the steps to the console.

'Let's go to the vortex,' he told the core. 'I want to have a look around at the décor before I go and throw a tantrum at UNIT. I feel like I'm a tantrum-throwing sort of fellow this time.'

It felt like she nodded, and with less flips of switches than it should have taken, the engines whirred, the console room shook, and then they were gone, out to space. The Doctor hopped around the console, flipping switches and pulling levers, chattering to himself and to the core, and almost, for a moment, forgot that Alfred was there. The TARDIS made a rough sort of noise, and he paused, frowned, and looked over to where Alfred was clinging onto the railing and stopped. Leaning against the console with his arms folded, he grinned at him.

'Time and Relative Dimension in Space,' he said. "T – A – R – D – I – S. I presume you know what those words mean now.'

Alfred nodded. 'It's bigger on the inside and it can travel in time and space. It's all relative.'

'Well, obviously.' He was quiet for a moment, frowning as he watched Alfred gather himself. 'You alright?'

The American spread his hands, shrugged. 'We're in space,' he said, and shrugged again. 'I waited twelve years for you and you're finally here. I think I'm okay.'

The Doctor frowned, and then nodded. 'Alright. It doesn't matter how long we spend here, you can take as much time as you need.'

'What would I need time for?' Alfred asked. 'I'm fine.'

The Doctor finally stopped frowning, raising his eyebrows and shrugging. 'Alright, if you're sure. Take a wander around; she'll point you anywhere you want to go.'

'Is the library still in the swimming pool?'

The Doctor laughed at that. 'I don't know, why don't you go investigate? I have some things I need to do before I go see UNIT, and that could take a few hours.'

Alfred nodded. 'Yeah, alright. Is there anywhere I can't go?'

'The TARDIS will lock you out if you can't,' the Time Lord replied, already pulling one of the console screens toward him. 'Just go investigate.'

'If you wanted to get rid of me, you only had to ask!'

'Oh, just go, good God!'

3

Alfred cried out some nonsense of how he was already gone, but he was laughing as he took the stairs up out of the console room three at a time. When he was gone, the Doctor looked at the door for a few minutes and then turned back to the screen, pressed a few buttons on the edging.

~ONE LIFE READING. SPECIES: TIME LORD~

'No,' he said, and slapped the side of the screen. 'There's a human aboard, you stupid thing. Find him.'

~ONE LIFE READING. SPECIES: TIME LORD~

'That's ridiculous,' he sighed, and pushed the screen away. 'Is he at least still on board?'

The TARDIS nodded as much as she ever did; the engines made a noise that vaguely sounded like a hum of an affirmative. Satisfied, the Doctor told her to keep him safe and out of his bedroom, thank you very much, and headed up the stairs himself. The TARDIS was big enough, after all, that they were unlikely to bump into each other. It took him five minutes to find the wardrobe, and almost ten to find an appropriate outfit change.

She tutted at him, actually tutted, the metal of the stairs rattling just so, until he finally gave up on the idea of plaid trousers, and picked up the blue suit she had pushed out of the rack for him.

'And what am I supposed to wear with it?' he asked her, holding it up to see if it would fit; tailor-made, of course. 'It's such a stupid shade of blue.'

He got the feeling, when the red trouser braces collided with the back of his head, that she was offended. Rubbing the points where the metal had hit his scalp, he looked up at the ceiling, a dozen floors away, and huffed.

'What was that for?' he demanded. 'That was totally unnecessary, you know.'

She didn't reply.

The Doctor pulled a face and hopped back down the stairs, suit in hand, and traipsed through the corridors to the bathroom, which he found after three TARDIS-orchestrated false turns.

It was a pleasant enough bathroom, very simple and practical, all pastel shades and exposed wood. There were little trinkets on the counters and on a sill beneath a window that looked out onto absolutely nothing, but pretended to be the stars, and a bathtub with brass feet. The lights were bright enough to see by dim enough not to strain, and though large, it gave it the effect of being very intimate and close.

'Have you turned into a country cottage?' he asked the air around him, setting the suit on one of the countertops and examining a bowl of what he determined to be pot pourri. 'This looks like a country cottage. Oh God, are we getting old, love? We are, aren't we?' He sighed. 'I suppose it's about time we started acting our age. Can't go gallivanting off into the great unknown anymore.'

The lights tinted blue and the engines rattled.

'I know,' he said, set the pot down and ran a hand along the wall. It felt like wallpaper, looked like it too, but really was just the TARDIS wall, cool metal under his fingers. 'It'll be okay.'

He stripped off a few moments later, took the time to examine his reflection in the mirror carefully, making a note of all the freckles and the curls of hair, a little darker than blond, of all the faint lines of muscle and the sharper edge of bone. It looked to him as though he could do with putting some weight on, looked on the wrong side of slender, but can't bring himself to care about it right now. All in all, he was short, blond, and very stereotypically British, in a way.

'This isn't the worst regeneration, I suppose,' he admitted, and ran himself a bath.

Having a bath was much more enjoyable than it had been during any other regeneration, and he wasted a good half an hour. He spoke to the TARDIS, mostly, washing himself off and fussing over his appearance, complaining about not being ginger and being short and having sharp features. The TARDIS engines whined, a huff of breath, exasperated but fond, and he laughed a little.

'I can't help it,' he defended, sinking a little lower in the bath. He had bony knees. 'It's just the way I am now apparently.'

She said nothing in reply, attention turning elsewhere; Alfred, probably. God only knows what the boy was getting up to. Still, the TARDIS was safe enough. Even if didn't register him on board.

Once he was dried off, he took another look at himself, and jumped a little when the TARDIS decided that a good use of her abilities was to alter the air flow to blow through the hair below his navel. Ticklish, apparently, he stepped back out of it.

'Behave,' he chided, and turned away from the mirror to get dressed.

He was still adjusting the trouser braces when he left the bathroom, wandering through the corridors and investigating the new layout. The newest addition to the variety of rooms was a peculiar sort of door, looking like a gate more than anything, wooden with a wrought iron frame. For a moment, he stood there looking at it, but decided against going through it and went back to the console room instead. He could investigate later.

'Find anything interesting?' he asked as he hopped down the stairs onto the grating.

Alfred was sitting in the captain's chair with a mug of what smelt like cocoa. The Doctor hopped the last couple of steps and went to lean against the console, tossing the suit jacket onto a conveniently-placed space in the design, seemingly perfectly designed to hold his jacket, and fiddled with his tie.

'Did she choose that for you?' Alfred asked.

'Yes,' the Doctor replied. He got to choose the tie and shoes at least.

'It looks like it. It looks good,' the other hastened to add. 'Fits really nicely.'

'Thanks,' the Doctor said, a little red in the ears. 'Did you find anything interesting whilst you were wandering?'

'The swimming pool isn't in the library anymore,' Alfred shrugged, looking at his drink. 'And there was a room full of bunk beds. But other than that nothing interesting. There was a weird door though.'

The Doctor had turned to start fiddling with the controls but turned back when Alfred mentioned the door.

'A door?'

'It was wooden but had this iron frame over it? Like it was a gate that had been filled in.'

The Doctor nodded. 'I've seen that too,' he agreed. 'We'll investigate later. For now, I need to go to Geneva.'

'Can I come with you?'

The Doctor grinned, pulled a lever and the engines whirred. 'I was counting on it.'

Alfred grinned and downed the last of his drink.

* * *

The UNIT base at Geneva hadn't changed much in the last twenty or so years. A major overhaul had rebuilt most of it, and all of the technology was replaced regularly to make sure they had all the latest security and computers and all the things that the Doctor had no time for. The uniforms hadn't changed much either, and the procedures to get in were exactly the same as before.

'We've got psychic training,' the guard at the gates told him when the Doctor flashed his psychic paper at him. 'It doesn't work on us.'

The Doctor made a rude noise. 'Well, fuck me sideways, you've finally caught on,' he scoffed. 'I'm the Doctor, idiot.'

'No, the Doctor was dark-haired.'

'Would you like me to go die my hair?'

'Doctor,' Alfred warned, but the Doctor just snorted and turned away.

'Utterly ridiculous,' he said.

Apparently, patience wasn't a trait of this regeneration either.

Eventually, though, the Brigadier-General came and took pity on them.

'Lieutenant Zwingli told me you'd be here,' he called, marching down the path to where they were standing.

'Thank you!' the Doctor crowed, stuck his fingers up at the guard and ducked under the barrier, waving for Alfred to follow.

As they were led into the command centre and through to the Brig's office, the Doctor and the Brig told Alfred about UNIT, about its history and how they'd come to know each other, and brought each other up to speed on what they'd each missed throughout their decades apart.

'I don't know where you've been,' the Brig said, holding a side-door open for them. 'But you missed a whole load of alien invasions we could have used your help with.'

'I'm sorry,' the Doctor said, didn't much sound it. 'But when the entire universe is at stake, that kind of takes priority.'

Alfred stared at him.

'Universal threats are surprisingly common,' the Doctor shrugged. 'When you've got technologically-advanced races hell-bent on domination, it's going to spread to a variety of systems and halfway across the galaxy if you don't stamp down on them before they get into stride. You can lose half a solar system in one day if you're not careful.'

'You do this a lot?' Alfred asked. 'Go saving galaxies?'

'Of course I do,' the Doctor replied. 'Someone has to do it, and why let someone else have all the fun?' He frowned then. 'A surprising number of invasions take place on Earth, though.' He glanced over at the Brig. 'You know, if you stopped sending things out into space, they'd stop finding you and I wouldn't have to keep coming to save you.'

'We can deal with it ourselves.'

'You don't know what's out there,' the Doctor replied, and gestured for Alfred to go through the door first. 'I do.'

Once everyone had sat down, the Doctor relayed what he'd learnt about Zwingli's station, and the Brig relayed what he'd found out.

'We know that the department store where you met our UNIT was host to the Nestene Consciousness.'

'Obvious,' the Doctor replied. 'I do hope you found the Consciousness itself.'

'Not yet.'

'Look for a transmission device,' the Doctor said. 'Like the London Eye. A giant dish. Circular object. It needs that, it'll be close by, probably underground.'

'Can't you deal with that?' Alfred asked.

'Haven't the time or the patience. I've dealt with the Nestene before, this isn't the first Living Plastic incident. _Do _give it a chance to leave before you kill it,' he drawled to the Brig, 'I don't want another inter-planetary incident to clear up. I can only shout so loud before everyone turns their translation devices off.'

'We aren't savages.'

'Could have fooled me.'

The Brig gave him a look, which the Doctor ignored.

'About the others, it forms an imperfect pentagram but perfect enough that it would have trapped the TARDIS.'

'So it's bigger than the Nestene?'

'Of course it is, the Nestene isn't nearly clever enough for this.' Crossing his leg to rest an ankle on the other knee, the Doctor rested his chin in his hand and thought about it for a moment or three. 'Your lieutenant said that you hadn't set off the other four explosions, that they happened without your intervention.'

'That was why we were looking into it. The FBI and CIA and all those other government agencies were investigating, thinking it was terrorism, but we thought we'd take a look ourselves, it didn't seem like ordinary terrorism to us.'

'It never is ordinary terrorism with you.' The Doctor heaved a sigh. 'So there's something out there trying to trap the TARDIS, but why? Why could it possibly want to trap her? More to the point – _who's_ trying?'

Alfred just looked confused, but the Brig shook his head, raking a hand through his hair.

'It could be anything,' he said. 'Or anyone.'

'I know,' the Doctor replied. 'That's what's worrying me.'

'It was a narrow escape,' the Brig mused him. 'She must have sensed it.'

The Doctor was looking at Alfred, who eventually felt the eyes on him and turned to look at him.

'What?' he asked.

'You're being very quiet,' the Doctor replied. 'It's not like you.'

4

'Perhaps I just have nothing to add to the conversation,' Alfred said, defensive. 'I don't even know what a Nestene is.'

The Doctor nodded, and looked back to the Brig. The kid had a point, after all, they hadn't even been on an adventure yet, not saved someone from Pompeii or met a historical figure. They hadn't even gone to Barcelona. There was always something, wasn't there? Just enough to make things thoroughly annoying for him. He scratched his sock for a moment and then an idea struck.

'It's still centred around you,' he said, looking back across at Alfred, who looked back in confusion. 'It was your workplace that was the last link to the trap. And it would be you, wouldn't it? The TARDIS had found you, even if she parked a little ways off. There's something about you,' he mused, and trailed off. 'Oh, never mind, it's probably nothing.'

It wouldn't be nothing, he thought, but for now it could wait.

'Five-point stars have so many meanings,' he said. 'It could mean anything.'

'It's usually the Devil,' Alfred said. 'At least on Earth. Upside down pentagram's are a sign of the Devil.'

'Yes, and so's an upside-down cross, but that's really a sign of Saint Peter. Nice chap. No, it's nothing to do with the Devil – the Devil doesn't even exist, not the way you lot think. The Tulpa Effect, despite your best efforts to the contrary, doesn't actually work, you know. It's impossible to create a reality from thought alone, no matter how many people think it. No, this is – this is something else entirely. I just don't know what. And that's frustrating.'

There was silence for a few minutes, the Doctor picking at his socks and Alfred fiddling with his fingers. The Brig was looking through papers on his desk, and seemed to be ignoring them both.

'I just don't like this!' the Doctor blurted out eventually, and got to his feet to pace. 'Something out there in the universe is trying to trap the TARDIS, but why? I don't understand! It makes no sense, and certainly no sense to try and trap her like that.' He wheeled around to look at the Brig. 'Find out what caused those explosions,' he said. 'I don't care how you do it – call Torchwood for all I care! – but find out what caused them. If was aliens, call me, if wasn't. Find out what it was and then call me. Alfred, let's go, there's nothing I can do.'

'But,' Alfred started, but the Doctor was already making of the door. He tossed an apologetic glance over to the Brig and hastened to follow.

'Is there really nothing you can do?'

'I'd go and investigate myself,' the Doctor said. 'But I'll be crossing my own time-stream.'

'But you didn't land when the first explosion happened so you're not crossing your time-stream?'

'No, but my presence will change what happened, and if I change what happened, I won't be able to land there and find you to go back and land there.'

'But what if you caused the explosion?'

'That's ridiculous.'

But he was thinking about it.

Unlocking the TARDIS, he said, 'Let's wait for the Brig to call, and then we can see if it is what I was meant to do. Until then; Barcelona?'

'Can I go and pack some clothes first?' Alfred asked. 'I mean, if I'm going to stay?'

'Well, of course,' the Doctor replied, and threw the controls into the correct order. 'Back to the dorms?'

'Yeah, thanks.'

With a whir of the engine, they were gone.

**++End Chapter++**

**NOTES::**

The geography is **completely made up**. Bear in mind I am A) English and B) don't care enough to get complete geographical accuracy and C) don't have the time for that.

**The Brig **is a nickname used in the earlier Doctor Who episodes instead of just saying 'Brigadier-General' all the time.

**Not much to say about this chapter really.**

**++Vince++**


End file.
